


How To Shoot Somebody Who Outdrew You

by thornfield_girl



Category: Justified
Genre: Angst, First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Male Friendship, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-05
Updated: 2011-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-26 23:15:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thornfield_girl/pseuds/thornfield_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boyd and Raylan never acknowledged their feelings for each other as young men, but Raylan wants to tell him now. He can't seem to find the right time to do it until that nosy Carol Johnson calls them on it. :)</p><p>There's lots of talking in this one, not a ton of sex. Sorry about that, if that's what you like. I like it too, but I wasn't inspired this time. Maybe because they're older (no less sexy for that, of course) and it's more about the loooooove.</p><p>This is for Kathryn, who suggested I use Carol's awesome "love story" line as a basis for a story, and whose comments I truly appreciate. Thanks!</p>
            </blockquote>





	How To Shoot Somebody Who Outdrew You

Raylan couldn't believe he was sitting there across from Boyd Crowder, in a stare down that might end in one of their deaths.

When Raylan had left Harlan, he and Boyd had parted as friends. They had never touched, never kissed, never uttered a word to each other about whatever it was that seemed to hover between them. In all the intervening years, Raylan had never been able to figure out if that was a figment of his own imagination, but he had carried on for some time holding Boyd in his heart and mind, believing that there was something connecting them. It had been very difficult at first, and several times he had almost gone back to Harlan to find out. He always decided against that move, because - he figured - even if it had been real, what was the point of finding out? After a long while, the feeling faded to a dull ache, then a mere occasional twinge. He could go for months without thinking about him at all, and when he did, it was... ok. It was just a memory, among other memories, some fond and some not.

Then he was sent back to Kentucky. And then he was asked about someone who shouted "Fire in the hole!" before blowing up a church. It was bad. So bad. The worst.

Their reunion had been a bit prickly, but Boyd had seemed happy to see him despite the circumstances. Raylan had felt much more conflicted than that. The church bombing, the swastikas, the awful racist blather - none of them seemed right. None of them seemed like Boyd. How could he have gone from there to here? It didn't make sense. He knew it wasn't real, but it was bad enough. He had become a cynical opportunist, a criminal who didn't care who got hurt in his pursuit of... money, apparently. Power, maybe. Raylan didn't really think that seemed right either, because Boyd had never been a greedy person. He had loved books, he had loved nature, and maybe he had loved Raylan. Maybe. Raylan now knew that's what had been between them, at least on his end. He had been in love since, so he knew it for what it was, and seeing Boyd had brought back a rush of memories. Not just of things that had happened, but of how it had felt for him back then. He'd had it bad, but he hadn't been in any way ready to recognize that feeling when it applied to another man. Raylan had never been with a man, although he was now able to acknowledge his occasional attractions towards them without freaking out. They were infrequent, and he had never felt anything like the depth of feeling he'd felt for Boyd, and for a time for Winona.

"Would you really shoot me?"

"You make me pull, I'll put you down."

Boyd reached for his pistol. Raylan drew and shot, and Boyd was on the floor. He couldn't understand how it had gone this way. Why would Boyd test him like that? How could he not have expected this very outcome?

Raylan called for an ambulance and knelt on the floor next to Boyd, still hardly believing this was happening.

"You did it. You really did it..."

_Well, of course I did, you dumbass. You reached for your gun. I told you. I told you._

Later, at the hospital, Raylan had gone in planning to tell Boyd the truth. He had almost died without knowing, and that thought was much more upsetting to Raylan than he would have expected, after all this time. All of that - what there was of it - had been in another life. But Raylan had been gone for so long that, for him, stepping back into Harlan was almost like stepping back in time. The feelings that had flooded him when he'd first Boyd again hadn't felt old, they hadn't felt faded and worn, they had felt the same. That was the truth that he wanted Boyd to know.

He hadn't been able to tell him. He didn't know if Boyd's religious conversion was real or not, but either way he didn't think that confessing these feelings (certainly "perversions" according to Boyd's newfound zealous faith) would go over very well.

After everything had blown up, and Boyd came to him for help and comfort, he'd wanted to tell him. Seeing him so broken, so... well, so lost, had been painful for Raylan. When he was like this, it was hard to see the boy he'd left behind. Often, he was somewhat visible to Raylan on the surface of Boyd's personality, like a faint double exposure. Sometimes he was almost solid, like when they had drunk moonshine together on that first day back, and Boyd had teased him, and told Raylan that he could see what was in his soul. Raylan had wanted to help, he had wanted to comfort. He hadn't been sure if telling him would be a comfort at all, though. If Boyd had felt the same way back then, would it be an unbearable pain to now realize what they might have had together? Would it be unbearable to Raylan to finally find out the answer to the question he'd asked himself for so many years?

He hadn't said anything. Later that day, Raylan had put his trust in Boyd, and he had come through. Boyd had said he was the only friend he had left in the world, and Raylan had thought that was a very sad thing. Someone like Boyd should have had many friends, many people who loved him. At least, someone like the Boyd he had known, the person he should have become.

Raylan eventually gave up the idea of telling Boyd anything about his feelings. He was back with Winona now, and Boyd was with Ava, and it could only cause problems for all of them if he were to open that can of worms. He would let it lie, and try to be the only kind of friend to Boyd that he was able to be. He wouldn't go after him with the law if he could help it, or try to find out what he was up to. He didn't want to know.

Because of this, he hadn't seen Boyd for awhile, when on that frustrating and awful day he ran into him with Carol Johnson in the courtroom in Lexington. She was someone to be reckoned with, Raylan had no doubts about that. She had asked him if she could trust Boyd, and Raylan thought for a few moments about that.

"The truth is...I don't know if you can trust Boyd to have your back, but...well he has tried to kill me, and I have shot him, and imprisoned him. I wouldn't be surprised if our paths again crossed in such a manner. He has had my back on two occasions. Once was the last day I was in the mine, and the other not so long ago."

What she said next was said in absolute certainty. "Sounds like a love story."

When she said this, Raylan had been unable to stop himself from glancing over at Boyd. He was looking levelly at Raylan with what seemed to be no expression on his face. Raylan wasn't sure what the look on his own face was, but he was sure it wasn't as calm and cool as all that. There was obviously something there, but he didn't know what it meant.

Boyd came to his room later that night, and Raylan was not surprised to see him. He let him in, and Boyd sat down in the hard chair next to Raylan's bed. Raylan sat on the edge of the bed, facing him.

"I knew, Raylan. Always did."

"What... what did you know?"

Boyd looked down, smiled and shook his head. "You really gonna make me do this by myself?"

"I don't know how to say it."

"Yeah. Well, that's ok Raylan. It doesn't really matter much anyway. Doesn't change anything. It's probably better left unsaid." He stood up to leave.

"Boyd, wait. Sit down, please. You want a drink?"

Boyd sat back down and folded his hands in his lap. "If you want to say something to me, you need to just say it. You don't have to, though. Like I said on the day you came back here to me, I know you, Raylan Givens. I _see_ you."

"When I came back here to you... is that how you saw it?"

"How it felt, anyway. So... say your piece."

"When we were young, before I left, I always felt like... like there was something... some kind of... well. I guess I loved you. Was in love with you, I mean. I really didn't understand it myself. Didn't want to think about it. But I always thought maybe you... but I didn't know."

Boyd nodded. "Well, I guess I loved you too. So there it is."

"You said you knew. Back then, you mean? You knew how I felt?"

"Sure I did. You weren't that subtle. Still ain't. And anyway, you knew too. I know you did, how could you not?"

"Why didn't you ever say something?"

"And why would I do that? You think that would have helped matters any, Raylan? Would you still have left? And what would have happened when one of our daddies inevitably found out? This is a small place. Secrets have a short shelf life here."

Raylan was silent, thinking about the things Boyd had said. He was right, of course. Doing nothing, keeping it inside, that had been the smart play. But then, things had still gotten so fucked up anyway. His failed marriage, his floundering career, Boyd's criminal activities, the shooting. The _sadness_ and the inability to let go.

"Well Raylan, it's been a pleasure chatting with you. I hope we can still be friends... or as much friends as we were before this little conversation, anyway."

"Boyd. There's something I didn't say. I-"

"Don't, Raylan."

"I have to."

"No, you really don't. And you shouldn't."

"You already know what I'm going to say, so just shut the hell up a minute and let me get it out."

Boyd closed his eyes and leaned his head all the way back.

"When I came back here... _to you_... the second I saw you, I felt like I was 19 again. When you hugged me, I felt like I was finally home. It was the first time I'd felt like that since coming back to Kentucky. I never missed this place much, but I missed you."

Boyd swallowed hard, took a deep breath and blew it out. "That's a nice thing to say, Raylan. And I missed you too. But I ain't really glad you're back. You make it harder for me. I was ok when you were gone, but now... well. I really should be going."

Boyd stood and moved toward the door. Raylan stood up too and grabbed him by the elbow before he could reach it.

"Wait, just one more thing."

"What now? You're pregnant and it's mine?"

Still holding Boyd's arm, Raylan kissed him. It was a closed-mouth affair, dry, not particularly sexual, yet it still managed to convey a remarkable amount of heat. It felt to Raylan like the entire weight of the past twenty years was behind that kiss, making it so much more than just the thing itself. Boyd didn't resist, but he didn't react much, at first. When Raylan pulled away, Boyd made the smallest of sounds. It was a helpless sound, Raylan thought. Not a moan exactly, or sob, or a sigh, but some mixture of the three.

"Well, now we know that too. Another thing I could have told you, Raylan. I really should leave now."

"But I don't want you to leave, Boyd."

"Yes, I gathered that. And, since I guess we've decided this is total honesty night, I don't really want to leave either. But I need to. This isn't good for me. Or you."

"You don't know what's good for me. Hell, I don't even know what's good for me."

"That much is blindingly obvious."

"Boyd, don't go. I want to find out. Don't you?"

"And what then? What if we do find out, Raylan? What if we find out that this is what's been missing from our lives for the last twenty years? What if we find out that it's better than anything else we have? What are we supposed to do with that information, besides torture ourselves even more than we already have?"

"I don't know."

"I have to go."

This time, Raylan let him leave. He spent the rest of the night drinking bourbon and thinking about how Boyd had said he'd known all the time. If that was true, then Raylan should have known too, should have seen something. Even now, in hindsight, he couldn't see it. Then, when he was half-asleep, a memory that he hadn't realized he had, came to him in vivid detail.

_They'd been drinking Arlo's moonshine in the woods out back of the Givens home. It was hot, the middle of July. They were leaning back against a fallen tree, almost close enough to touch but not touching. And then, suddenly, they were. Boyd had leaned his head over to rest on Raylan's shoulder, and Raylan had reached up to brush his fingers through his hair. Their hands, resting on the ground between them, sought each other out, and they grasped tightly. They stayed like that for some time - Raylan wasn't sure how long, because they'd been so drunk, and he thought he'd fallen asleep for awhile._

_Neither of them ever said a word about it, of course. Raylan only held on to it for a short time before it became hazy and seemed more like a dream than a memory. Then he thought it must have been a dream, and had almost completely forgotten about it. ___

That must have been why Boyd thought he'd known. It was a lovely memory, so innocent, really, though neither of them qualified as such in most people's estimation. Raylan wondered if there were other such times, other times when Boyd had let down his guard in front of Raylan. He thought not, probably not. That one time probably scared him, made him pull it back even further.

After all the bad shit went down with Boyd and Arlo, Helen, and the Bennetts, and after Boyd had once again had his back, Raylan went back to talk to Boyd again. He found him at the Puddle, drinking on his own. Raylan sat down on the stool next to him and ordered a bourbon.

"I'm sorry about Dickie, Boyd. I know you feel like he shoulda been yours to deal with, and maybe part of me agrees with you."

"The Givens part."

"Well, yeah. There's that. Also the part that hates to disappoint you."

"Raylan... you and me, all we seem to do is disappoint each other. Have you noticed that?"

"Now, that's not true and you know it. We've helped each other too."

Boyd sighed. "Maybe. But there's always the thing that never goes away. Always that big disappointment under whatever else is going on."

"You were the one who wanted to forget all that."

"I know. But of course, I can't. And you can't. And it's all just going to be fucked up all the time, and nothing we can do about it."

"The night you came over, after you left, I remembered something from back then. I guess I'd been thinking it was a dream or something, but now I think it was real."

"In the woods?"

Raylan nodded.

"That was as close as I could get to telling you. I didn't want... I just wanted to feel close. Nothing more than that."

"You wanted more than that."

"Maybe, but I thought that would be enough."

"Boyd, let's get out of here."

"And go where?"

"For a drive."

"I ain't really in great shape to be out joyriding."

"I'll drive."

"I'm sure I'll regret this, but it ain't the first time I've said that and went ahead anyway." He pulled out a few bills and left them on the bar. "I got yours too."

"Well, I guess that makes it a date." Boyd gave him a withering look, and they were out the door.

Raylan started driving south, not really knowing where he was planning to go. He just wanted to be away from people, away from everyone except Boyd. This thing between them was doing nothing but messing with their minds, making everything unclear and confusing, blurring all of the lines. The way they'd been dealing with it was obviously not working, so maybe it was time to try something new. He _wanted_ to try something new.

"Where are we going?"

"Don't know. Any ideas?"

"That depends on what we're doing, here, Raylan."

"I want to feel close again."

Boyd closed his eyes and didn't speak for five minutes or so.

"There's a motel I know outside of Middlesboro. Should be far enough."

"You really want to..."

"Raylan, I don't want to talk about this anymore. I don't think we should be doing this at all, but I can't say I don't want to. And I know you want to. So if it's going to happen, we both need to stop _discussing_ it and just get it over with."

Raylan laughed. "Good idea. Let's get it over with. Hey, maybe it'll be awful and we can just forget about it."

"I'm sure it'll be terrible."

"Have you ever - "

"No."

"Me neither."

"I'd never have guessed. Raylan, I meant what I said. Stop talking about it."

"OK. What should we talk about? Football?"

"I hate football."

"You might want to keep that to yourself."

"No shit."

"Read anything good lately?"

"I haven't read anything since I stopped reading the Bible."

"Seriously?"

"Yes, Raylan, seriously."

"That don't seem right, Boyd. You without a book in your hand."

"Things change. People change. You can't tell me I'm the same person you knew when we were working in the mines together."

"Things change, maybe. People, not so much. You're still you. I wouldn't be here if you weren't."

"You sure about that? Maybe you're just chasing a ghost."

"Maybe you are too."

"I can't discount that possibility."

They arrived at the little motel about 45 minutes later, and Boyd got the room. Raylan drove around to the parking space outside their door, and they both sat for a minute without moving. Raylan spoke first.

"Well..."

"Right. Let's go."

The room bore a strong resemblance to Raylan's own room back in Harlan, though it was smaller. The walls were covered in fake wood paneling, there were hideous prints of flowers and fruit hanging on them, and it smelled of disinfectant and mildew. Boyd sat down on the edge of the bed, and Raylan hesitated for a second before coming over to sit next to him.

"Awkward," Raylan said. Boyd chuckled. Then he lifted his legs onto the bed and stretched out with his head on one of the pillows.

"Come on up here, Raylan. Get close."

Raylan gave him a surprised look, then pulled off his boots and obeyed. He lay on his side, supporting himself on one elbow, and stretched an arm across Boyd's chest.

"Closer."

Raylan could feel Boyd's heart beating hard and fast, and his own heart felt like it might explode at any second. Boyd reached up and grabbed the back of his head, pulling him down into a kiss. This one was quite different from the one Raylan had given Boyd a few weeks prior. This was their chance, maybe their one chance, and they both seemed to have come to the conclusion that they were going to make it count. When their tongues slid together for the first time, Raylan made a desperate noise in his throat, and he slid his hand under Boyd's shirt just to be touching more skin. Boyd pushed Raylan back, sat up and stripped his shirt completely off, and Raylan did the same. After only a half-second's hesitation, he took off his pants as well, only leaving his boxer shorts.

Boyd raised his eyebrows at Raylan and said, "Well, now. Look who got all brave all of a sudden."

"Shut up, Boyd. Get yours off too."

Boyd quickly stripped off his own jeans, and his boxers, and lay back on the bed completely naked, grinning malevolently at Raylan.

"Scared yet?"

"Not of you." Raylan wasn't being completely honest - he actually was a little, maybe a lot scared - but that wasn't something he ever liked to admit, least of all to his oldest friend. He pulled off his own underwear and moved back up to where he'd been before, next to Boyd.

Boyd looked at him and cocked an eyebrow. "You're a liar, Raylan Givens. You keep forgetting that I know you. I know you of old."

"Shakespeare, huh?"

"I thought it fit the moment."

"Stop talking."

"Make me."

Raylan did just that, covering Boyd's mouth with his own and reaching down to wrap a hand around his dick. There was no more talking for awhile after that, only sounds of pleasure and surprise. They were both excited to be in this new situation, one that they had both given years and years to in their imaginations, but they were also experienced lovers and were no longer young men. They took their time, backed off when they needed to, and at times allowed their affection for each other to take precedence over their desire. If this was the only time for them, then it would be the best time possible. When it was over, they got beneath the cheap motel blankets and held on to each other.

"So, did you find out, Raylan?"

"I guess I did."

"What's the verdict?"

"I'm not sure you want to hear it."

"That bad, huh?"

"Boyd... you might have been right. Maybe we should have left this alone."

"No, I wasn't right. I wasn't right at all. Not now, not then. I see that now. This... I thought I knew, but I didn't know. Not really."

"I don't know what to do."

"Nor me."

"Maybe we should just go to sleep now. Think on it tomorrow."

"Can you fall asleep with me on you like this?"

"Probably not, but stay like that for awhile anyway, OK?"

"OK."

**Author's Note:**

> The work title is from the Leonard Cohen song, "Hallelujah." Not country, or even alt-country this time, how about that.


End file.
